A bill prohibiting children aged 13 and below from using social media accounts has been filed in the House of Representatives.
The bill also imposes a P50 million fine on social media platforms with insufficient online child safety standards, such as age verification, parental controls, and safeguards against harmful content.
Speaker Faustino “Bojie” Dy III and House Majority Leader Ferdinand Alexander “Sandro” Marcos made the proposal under House Bill 9965 or the Children’s Social Media Safety Act, which was filed eight days after the shooting in a school in Tacloban City that involved minor gunmen aged 15 and 14.
The incident left three children dead and 20 others injured.
“At its core, this bill recognizes that every child deserves a safe environment to grow, learn, and develop free from harm both in the physical and digital world. This bill adopts a clear age-based regulatory framework by imposing an absolute prohibition on the use of social media by children below 13 years of age, recognizing their heightened vulnerability and limited capacity to navigate digital risks,” the bill's explanatory note read.
“The measure seeks to establish the country’s first comprehensive regulatory framework governing children’s access to and use of social media platforms while promoting responsible, age-appropriate digital engagement through stronger safeguards, greater platform accountability, enhanced parental supervision, and digital literacy,” the bill added.
The measure also mandates social media platforms implement reliable age verification systems, immediately disable prohibited accounts upon discovery, and adopt safeguards to prevent children from repeatedly creating new accounts to evade the prohibition.
The same bill also provides that for children aged 13 to below 17, social media access would only be allowed with verifiable parental or guardian consent and active, continuous supervision.
Likewise, social media platforms will be required to periodically re-verify users’ age and parental consent, while automatically restricting or suspending access once such consent is withdrawn.
Further, the bill requires social media companies to provide parents and guardians with tools to supervise their children’s accounts, monitor online activity and interactions, access privacy settings, set screen time limits and breaks, and withdraw consent whenever necessary.
Ultimately, the bill also mandates online platforms to apply the highest privacy and safety settings by default for child users, restrict geolocation sharing and financial transactions by minors, prevent automatic redirection to potentially harmful external websites, and prohibit the unnecessary collection or use of children’s biometric and sensitive personal data, in accordance with the Data Privacy Act of 2012.
As for fines, social media platforms that fail to act on requests involving prohibited accounts may be fined between P5 million and P10 million, while violations of the law’s platform obligations and enforcement requirements carry stiffer penalties of P20 million to P50 million.
In cases of repeated and serious violations, platforms may face temporary restriction of access within the Philippines or be prohibited from operating in the country, subject to due process.
Rapid-response network
As this developed, a regional mental health rapid-response network has been proposed in the aftermath of the Tacloban school shooting.
Leyte First District Rep. Martin Romualdez proposed this in a meeting with officials from the Commission on Higher and Technical Education (CHED), Department of Education (DepEd), Department of Health (DOH) and Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) in Tacloban City last Monday.
“We should have a regional network of volunteer psychologists, psychiatrists, guidance counselors, social workers, and other professionals that we could immediately deploy if an incident like this happens. This network would be supported by preventive education and stronger coordination among government agencies, schools, and local communities,” Romualdez said.
Romualdez said that aside from a quick response team, regular seminars for students, parents and teachers on mental wellness, child protection and violence prevention should also be conducted.
In addition, Romualdez said that Congress has a crucial role to play in addressing the tragedy, given that it is in charge of drafting laws and providing budget for the services for the children.
“What happened concerns a lot of things: mental health, family environment, bullying, social media, access to counseling, among others. We have to ensure that legislative responses include expanding school mental health programs, hiring more guidance counselors and social workers, strengthening GMRC (Good Manners and Right Conduct) and reviewing safeguards for minors’ use of social media,” Romualdez said.
“Children’s safety is not the responsibility of one agency alone. It rests on the government, schools, parents, and the community. We can’t wait for another tragedy to happen before we take action,” he added. —LDF, GMA News